README

AIS Parser SDK v1.10
Copyright 2006-2014 by Brian C. Lane <bcl@brianlane.com>
All Rights Reserved
See LICENSE for licensing information
This is the first public release of the AIS Parser SDK. I have re-licensed it under the BSD license. See LICENSE for details. This code will now be available at https://github.com/bcl/aisparser/
'C' Version:
AIS Parser SDK source is in ./c/src/
HTML documentation is in ./c/docs/html/
Example programs are in ./c/examples/
Python Version:
The Python version is created using SWIG (www.swig.org), there are modules
for OSX, Linux and Windows. The SWIG .i file is included so you can rebuild
it yourself if needed.
Linux Python is in ./python/linux/
OSX Python is in ./python/osx/
Win32 Python is in ./python/win32/
I have removed the pre-compiled Python versions because they were out of date. You can rebuild them on your system by running the buildit script in their respective directories.
Win32 DLL built using Visual Studio 6 is in ./dll/aisparser
Visual Basic 6 example is in ./dll/examples
This version does not include a pre-compiled DLL. I no longer support Windows as a development environment so you will need to build your own.
AIS Parser SDK source
---------------------
The core parser consists of 12 files, 6 .c files and their associated .h files:
nmea.c/nmea.h - functions for processing NMEA 0183 sentences.
sixbit.c/sixbit.h - functions for processing packed 6-bit strings
vdm_parser.c/vdm_parser.h - functions for processing AIVDM sentences
imo.c/imo.h - functions for parsing IMO binary messages
seaway.c/seaway.h - functions for parsing St. Lawrence Seaway binary messages
access.c/access.h - helper functions for python and Visual Basic
St. Lawrence Seaway
-------------------
The parser code for St. Lawrence seaway binary messages is in the seaway.c file. The
seawayX_X messages have been tested against the examples in the Seaway documentation.
the pawssX_X messages have not been tested.
If someone has access to live Seaway messages that I could use in testing, I would
appreciate it if you would forward them to me at bcl@brianlane.com
The St. Lawrence Seaway message specification is in ./c/docs/StLawrence.pdf
IMO Binary Messages
-------------------
The parser code for IMO binary messages is in the imo.c and imo.h files. The imoX_X messages have not yet been tested against real data.
If someone has access to live IMO Binary messages that I could use in testing, I would
appreciate it if you would forward them to me at bcl@brianlane.com
The IMO Binary Message specification is in ./c/docs/IMO-236.pdf
HTML Documentation
------------------
The documentation is integrated with the code and extracted using Doxygen.
The HTML documentation index file is in ./c/docs/html/index.html
It can be regenerated using the Doxygen config file at ./c/docs/doxygen.conf
Examples
--------
The best place to start is the example code. I have included ais_json which
parses messages with position information and outputs a JSON (JavaScript)
data structure for use with the Google Maps demo webpage. There is also a
simple XML version and a text output version.
Parsing St. Lawrence Seaway and IMO binary messages are more complicated than the other messages. You must first parse the mssage 8 or 6, and then pass its data payload to the appropriate seaway/imo parser function to extract all of the information.
Python
------
The Python module is created using the SWIG project, it is a wrapper
around the SDK's 'c' source. Structures are implemented as classes in
Python, and all of the SDK's functions are exposed via the Python interface.
Check the ./python/example/ directory for examples of how to use the Python
module. There is a wxPython GUI application that will read a log file and display the details of the messages. There is also last_ais.py which I use to generate my dynamic
email signature, capturing the latest ship info from my local receiver.
The runme.py example in the swig directory can also be used. It has an example of parsing a Seaway 1.3 message. In python the struct arrays are not properly understood by the SWIG wrapper, so the helper function that matches the message must be used to first extract the array element before Python can operate on it.
Windows DLL
-----------
There is a Windows DLL, including source, in ./dll/aisparser
It was compiled using Visual Studio 6, and does not work with .NET or any of the new Visual tools that I am aware of. There is an example VB6 application in the ./dll/examples directory.
The Visual Basic example form code show how to use all of the normal parsing functions. I have attempted to add parsing of the IMO and St. Lawrence Seaway messages to it, including adding helper functions (which are also used by python), but I have been unable to convince Visual Basic to correctly recognize the data structures. So, for now, parsing all of the normal AIS messages works fine in VB6, but IMO and Seaway parsing doesn't work.
Delphi
------
Thanks to Chris Krohn for allowing me to include his Delphi port of the parser. This does not include the St. Lawrence Seaway parser code. It can be found in ./contrib/AISParser.pas
If you have any comments, questions, problems, etc. Please contact me and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I appreciate feedback of any kind.
email - bcl@brianlane.com